This has appeared out of the blue. Who knew? Over 50 minutes of prime ‘Sweet Child’ era Pentangle filmed with great sound by NRK (Norway).
The full concert is here (see link in this post) and comprises:
The Time Has Come
Mirage
A Woman Like You (Bert)
Turn Your Money Green (Jacqui & John)
Hear My Call
Haiaitian Fight Song (Danny)
Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
Bells
Bruton Town
Two further pieces from the same performance (at Oslo University, May 1968) are featured here: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/visefestival-i-kroa/FBUA07005968/19-07-1968
Travelling Song
Pentangling
https://tv.nrk.no/serie/visefestival-i-kroa/FBUA07005768/07-06-1968
Thankee kindly Colin.
Wow, great find Colin. I seem to remember not long ago NRK came up with a Keith Jarrett concert that nobody knew about.
Funnily enough, I asked NRK in the early 90s if they had anything and they volunteered the two songs on the programme in the second link, but never mentioned the rest. Their databasing must have improved since then…
This cuts off abruptly for me at 40 mins 22 secs, sadly, but it’s a great find in any case!
The other 10+ mins (the other two tracks) are contained within the programme accessed by the second link, here:
https://tv.nrk.no/serie/visefestival-i-kroa/FBUA07005968/19-07-1968
Doh. If I was any dimmer I’d be out.
Blimey indeed! Viking gold of the first class. Nice work, Colin.
Amazing it’s only come to light now. I blame Loki, the god of mischief.
You mean our Loki, who lives in Stockholm and consumes inhuman quantities of music and literature?
Right now, all I’m consuming is inhuman quantities of crisps! 🙂
…surrounded by howling North winds, impenetrable snowdrifts, rampaging trolls and marauding schools of narwhals and walrus among the archipelago…
Of course, it wouldn’t be Fredagsmys* without it!
(*approx. “Cosy Friday”, a popular Swedish term for the family/friends get-together on Friday nights, preferably gathered around tacos, followed by crisps and pick’n’mix and Friday night telly…)
That Colin’s never lived, eh, Locust?
What cosy Swedish Friday evening would be complete without the excitement of fighting off a horde of marauding walruses who are desperate for your packet of salt and vinegar crisps?
Everybody has an uncle like that, it’s not just in Sweden! 😀
Good find sir!
Plenty of amazing stuff on the NRK site. Here’s Ralph Towner’s Oregon from 1975:
https://tv.nrk.no/serie/moldejazz/FBUA07003175/18-08-1975
Great footage and thanks for the tip on the NRK site. Ralph Towner is one of my fave ECM artists so this is a treat.
I can’t open any of the links, so have only watched the YouTube clip in the OP.
Great camera work. Love the extreme close-ups of the guitars. Bert and John are using clunky old clip-on pick-ups to turn their acoustics into electrics. That’s such old technology now and has been for decades.
The more time goes on, the more I’m convinced that Danny Thompson was the driving force in Pentangle. Renbourn and Jansch may have been the glamour couple, but Danny’s musicianship is incredible.
And let’s not forget Terry Cox. Here’s another from the NRK show that someone has kindly uploaded to YouTube:
Danny Thompson cops a joint credit on a Donovan 45.
That’s right up there with “The Beatles with Billy Preston” on “Get Back.”
DT wrote a letter to the Melody Maker in, I think, 1967 or 68, which I came across several years ago. He mentioned in passing ( I can’t recall the context of his letter) having been on ‘Sgt Pepper’ himself.
…how about this: I bought a mid-60s Big Pete Duker [he’d phoneticised it from Deuchar by then] Columbia single on ebay last week and the label credits Big Pete and then, on a separate line in smaller print: ‘with tambourine’.
“Danny Thompson cops a joint credit on a Donovan 45”
That would be Celia Of The Seals, one of the best tracks from the sadly neglected 1971 HMS Donovan double LP.
“Celia” was of course model and animal activist Celia Hammond, Jeff Beck’s girlfriend in the late 60s.
Danny is all over this record. Listen for him at around 50 secs.
Hmmm, no credit on the US pressing.
I was taken by 3 things in this clip: they spend ages tuning, but then you realise this was years before digital tuners were invented. Secondly Bert Jansch was the worlds worst front man. And thirdly, Jacqui McShee was particularly good at doing her thing. Knew the words, always came in on time, sang in tune
I saw Pentangle in the Ulster Hall Belfast, not long after their first album came out. They were very good. I also saw their reunion gig at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, still very good. I was intrigued to discover from Wiki that Terry Cox is now 79
On a fashion note. Jacqui’s hair seems unusually long. Perhaps one of the ladies on the blog could confirm if she’s wearing hair extensions.
And yes, Bert had bags of charisma but very little of it comes through in his stage announcements,
In the absence of the Afterword’s hair extension correspondent, whoever she or he might be, I’d say her hair looks pretty much the same length it always was – Lady Godiva length, you might say.
That stonking great Marshall amp was overkill, shirley? Probably had it turned up to -3.
Great spot, Colin, thanks. Much enjoying.
PS: a random discovery from the NRK website – the Danish drama I know as Follow the Money is called Bedrag in Norwegian. Sounds like something else altogether.
I just noticed that. Renbourn (or Danny) is using a Marshall half-stack with a slanted 4 x 12 cabinet. Can’t tell if it’s 50w or 100w but it seems more suited to ripping out blues boom solos than delivering the gentle jazz folk of Pentangle.
Hard to tell what Bert’s using but it looks like some kind of Fender amp.
As the shot pulls back at 40 secs we see a cameraman with an industrial sized TV camera crouching by the Marshall, zooming in on Danny Thompson.
Good stuff. Really enjoyed that. Probably the best 1960s Norwegian music television footage I’ve seen since that classic one-hour recording of the 1964 Charles Mingus Sextet (with Eric Dolphy, Jaki Byard, Clifford Jordan, Johnny Coles and Dannie Richmond), which is also on YouTube for further generations to enjoy.